Fridge Horror
by Miah-Arthur
Summary: No one came to let Lucifer out of the freezer in S3E09 The Sinnerman.


**Notes:** Thank you to Maimat for beta reading. Whumptober 2019 #7 Isolated

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**Fridge Horror**

by

Miah . Arthur

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Lucifer had raged at first. Cursing the Sinnerman. Cursing Dad. Amenadiel. Everyone. The Detective. In a moment of weakness, he had even directed his ire at her.

He paced and stalked and probed every inch of the freezer but they'd imbued every inch with magic. He tried unraveling the spells, tried breaking the walls, the floor, ceiling, and door.

His right arm is numb from impacting the magical wards so many times.

Lucifer huddles in a corner, arms wrapped around himself, rocking slightly. He is trapped. Alone. No one knows where he went. He has a history of disappearing. He'd been gone three days when devilnapped and dumped in the desert and no one noticed. No one cared when he returned. Why should they? He is unreliable. Flighty. Worthless.

The walls press in on him.

No one will miss him.

How long can he live on the mortal plane without food and water?

Will he die like this? What happens to his soul if he dies trapped here?

His chest feels tight. Constricted. The breath is squeezed from his chest. He needs air. There isn't enough. He can't breathe. The walls loom over him. He can't breathe. His hands claw at his throat.

Air!

Gasping.

His eyes slide closed.

When he wakes, for a moment he thinks he has fallen asleep on the floor of his penthouse.

The hum of the fluorescent lights grinds into the bones of his ears.

Trapped.

Alone.

How long has it been?

Time passes. He doesn't know how much. He imagines the Detective at her desk, filing paperwork—at peace without him there to bother her. He even imagines Daniel eating pudding and Ms. Lopez dancing as she works in her lab.

He had an appointment with Dr. Linda two days past his vainglorious decision to pursue the Sinnerman alone. She looked for him once when he didn't keep his appointment. But she knows what he is now. She knows he is invulnerable and prone to running away and that defending him is dangerous.

She has real clients to worry about. Ones she has a chance of fixing. She'll still be paid. He set her up for automatic payouts months ago. She deserves it. Even if he is gone forever, he can't truly pay her what he owes. He curls tighter around himself. His tongue is thick and sticks to the roof of his mouth. His stomach aches with hunger. He won't die, but his body isn't happy.

Linda will be safer with him gone. She almost died because of him. What right does he have to risk the lives of the humans he surrounds himself with? Especially one as rare as Dr. Linda?

He closes his eyes, imagining wide open spaces, driving through the desert in his Corvette. He sleeps, the boundary between thought and dream marked by blue light and tight corridors and adamantine chains that no celestial can break.

Waking is a relief.

Until it isn't. The incessant fluorescent humming assails his ears, thirst and hunger and weariness drag at him. The walls of the room move, crawling nearer at the edge of his vision, and retreating when he looks directly their way. He scrapes his hand across his face. His stubble has grown out, beyond the acceptable length to disheveled.

He should move, stretch his aching limbs, but what's the point? He deserves this and so much more. He hurt the Detective. Hurt Dr. Linda. Hurt Maze. Everyone. How dare he _want_. He knew he should never. He is the devil. The devil doesn't get friends. Family. People to care for. Alone. That is the sentence for his innumerable crimes.

He sleeps.

He wakes.

It gets harder to separate the two. He thinks he hurts more awake, but he isn't sure. The nightmares offer no comfort. A creeping numbness spreads up his limbs. Dying, a distant part of his brain whispers. Existing, another echoes back. He is immortal in Creation. He could exist for eternity in this state. Unsure. Forgotten.

Alone.

Someone will search, eventually. No one _wants_ him, but someone will _need_ him. A favor. An aide to a case. A loan. He is worth searching for so long as he can fulfill desires, so long as he can be what they need.

And now he's gone. He has given them yet another reason to hate him. Another failure. More evidence of his uselessness. More evidence that the devil can't be trusted.

He _should_ stay here. He hasn't been granting favors. Hasn't been fulfilling desires. Hasn't given the Detective, Linda, Maze, _anyone_ what they desired lately.

He dared to hope.

Dared to _want_ for himself. To love and think for the briefest of moments that anyone could love a monster like him.

Alone.

Trapped.

He doesn't hear the bar lift. He doesn't hear the door open. He doesn't sense the easing of the magical ties binding him to this room.

He feels his body. Pain from lying too long in one position. The bone-deep ache in his muscles. Maddening thirst.

A scratchy voice mumbling. Hands rummaging through his pockets, yanking his shoes from his feet.

He connects to the world enough to pry open his eyelids and groan. The dirty, ragged, bearded figure pawing at him shrieks and scrambles away.

Lucifer doesn't have the energy for more and the man returns and finishes stripping him of his jacket before bundling his spoils and scuttling away.

The door does not clang closed.

The gap in the magical barrier is slim, but Lucifer senses it.

He calls his wings forth and wills himself away from this prison. Wills himself to his home. To his shower.

_Home_.

He forces his arm to the controls and water, glorious water, pummels his body. He laps it up by the handful. Life seeps back into him. Weak, tired, and sore, but he sits up, stands up, strips his filthy clothes and hides his wings. He wraps himself in a towel, water streaming from his hair and staggers to his bar, retrieves a bottle of whiskey and plods the few steps to his sofa before collapsing.

He downs half the bottle in one long, satisfying pull and falls asleep.

He wakes, still thirsty, desperately hungry, but aware. His body has put the calories in the alcohol to good use as he knew it would. He sits up. Rubs his hands over his face and head, noting the growth. He hasn't seen the date yet, but his hair tells him he's been gone for weeks. He needs a haircut and shave. Food. Water. More sleep. By tomorrow he'll be back to normal, at least normal enough to keep up appearances.

Tomorrow he will slink back to the station. And if they will have him, he will smile and be charming and...die a little more inside.


End file.
